Eliot Spitzer: U.S. needs ‘big, old-fashioned Keynesian stimulus’

Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Monday that the United States needed to invest in the public sector, because the country’s current policies clearly were not revving up the economy.

“One thing that could help is a big, old-fashioned Keynesian stimulus,” he said on his Current TV show Viewpoint.

“First, realize we’ve tried the Republican approach,” Spitzer explained. “As Paul Krugman and others point out, taxes have been cut and government spending has fallen, once you adjust for population and inflation. In fact, it has not fallen this quickly since the demobilization after the Korean war. So it’s no surprise that public sector employment is way down.”

He noted that now was a good time for the U.S. government to borrow more money, because of the extremely low interest rates.

“A myriad of investments can spur future growth and create jobs right now. We could even have a modern WPA for kids coming out of high school and college who desperately need jobs,” Spitzer said, making reference to programs enacted under The New Deal by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Eric W. Dolan has served as an editor for Raw Story since August 2010,
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